Monarchy’s future is on the line as Jordanians vote for new parliament

King Abdullah II of Jordan, pictured with his wife Queen Rania and their youngest son Prince Hashem, aims to control the move to greater democracy, but faces opposition from Islamists. Picture: Getty

JAMAL HALABY

00:00Wednesday 23 January 2013

JORDAN has long been the West’s ally in the Middle East, a disposition which continues today under King Abdullah II and his wife Rania, the Queen consort of Jordan.

But recently Islamists in the capital’s streets have been calling for dramatic change.

The leader of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Saeed, publicly called for the country to become a “state in the Muslim Caliphate”, winning cheers from bearded Islamists who gathered to hear him last week.

The call for a state stripped of its monarchy is one indication of how heated the debate has become around the parliamentary elections being held today.

For father-of-four King Abdullah, 50, the election offers a way to control the move to greater democracy, as he cedes enough of his powers to parliament to forestall any Arab Spring-style uprisings such as the ones that toppled autocrats in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia and fuelled civil war in Syria.

“The elections are a theatrical comedy, which we will not take part in,” said Zaki Bani Irsheid of the Islamic Action Front, the Brotherhood’s political party. “It is part of a royal gimmick to buy time and block any moves toward real and genuine reforms.”

The Brotherhood is boycotting the vote, as are four smaller parties, including Communists and Arab nationalists. But the Islamists haven’t been able to rally the public to their side. Many Jordanians distrust the Brotherhood, eyeing its rise in Egypt and fearing it could grab power in Jordan, causing upheaval.

The protest last Friday at which Mr Saeed spoke numbered just over 1,000, despite the Brotherhood’s boasts it would bring out tens of thousands.

The government says the measured pace of reform aims to acclimatise Jordan to democracy. King Abdullah began the reform process last year, handing more authority to the newly elected parliament. The Chamber of Deputies will now have a freer hand to draw up legislation, a stronger role in monitoring the Cabinet and, for the first time, MPs, not the king, will choose the prime minister.

An Independent Electoral Commission was created, taking over responsibility for the elections from the interior ministry.

Last week, King Abdullah signalled he was ready to relinquish more powers in future.

“The system of ruling in Jordan is evolving … and the monarchy which my son will inherit will not be the same as the one I inherited,” he said. Officials said the king wanted to ensure an “effective” system of governance in which mature political parties can fill a vacuum to be left by the monarchy stepping back from running the state.

With the opposition staying out of the race, the next parliament is likely to be a mix of inexperienced independents and royalist conservatives. The Brotherhood says it is boycotting the polls since the process is biased towards the royalists.

Turnout among the 2.3 million registered voters could be a key measure of how much trust the public feels for the reform programme. The Commission said 1,425 candidates, including 191 women and about 139 former MPs, are vying for seats in the new, 150-member lower house of parliament.

The king has said the next steps will be to build real political parties. He wants to streamline 23 small and fractured parties into three to five coalitions based on ideology – Right, Left and centre – for future elections. “It’s an exciting political process, which will show a new face to Jordan as it peacefully transforms itself into a full-fledged democracy with not a single drop of blood shed,” said engineer Emad Nafaa, 42.

But nurse Aida Abu Odeh, 32, said the reforms were cosmetic. “Nobody enjoying power ever suddenly decides to give it up.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.